Lois decides maybe she needs to take a little break from Clark after he turns down a chance to work on a story with her that will earn them their jobs back at the Daily Planet. She's still pining for the Blur and her higher purpose, but Clark's got his hands full with that whole alien apocalypse mess. Before he can reconcile with Lois or chase after Kandorians, though, his long-absent mother Martha Kent returns from the U.S. Senate for a visit. She's all verklempt seeing the farm again, but she's brought her new boyfriend to cheer her up. It's none other than Perry White, played by Annette O'Toole's real-life hubby Michael McKean. Lois and Clark at first lie about being together and still working at the paper, but they come clean over an awkward family dinner. Lois and Perry also decide to work together on a story to expose the Red Queen, which Martha discovers for the first time when Perry accidentally drops his notes in front of her. Since the promos totally spoiled the reveal, it's no surprise at all when it turns out Martha is the Red Queen. She sets up a fake meeting with Perry and Lois to put them on a false trail.
Meanwhile, she's got Maxwell Lord working his mind mojo on a kidnapped Tess, trying to get her to reveal the location of the Book of Rao. She overcomes his mental influence and escapes, or so she thinks, but in facts ends up leading Martha right to the Book of Rao's hiding place. Martha comes away with the Book and a sassy pair of red stilettos. During a conversation with Chloe about using Watchtower to protect him, Clark puts 2 + 2 together and figures out his mommy dearest has actually been working behind the scenes as the Queen. He confronts his mother about it, and she confesses. She's been trying to protect him all along and gives him the powerful Book of Rao to help him defeat the Kandorians. The only problem is that if he uses it to exile them from Earth, he'll end up exiled himself. Oops.
In the week's subplot, Chloe uses a mostly defunct Watchtower to help Clark track down the Kandorians. When he gets impatient about the computers still being out of service, Chloe confesses that they're actually working fine. It's Chloe who's having a bit of a breakdown. Now that she has Ollie, she wants to start living a real life instead of playing "big brother/sister" to the heroes. Clark talks her into staying by pointing out he needs her and her work is important and that she's a hero, too. Plus, the show's been renewed for a 10th season, so she's sort of stuck.
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It's a lovely spring day at the Kent farm. It's the kind of day that makes young men want to go for a dip down at the ol' swimmin' hole, or laze about under the gently spreading branches of a favorite old tree. What's Clark doing? Why, he's inside the house, punching holes in the walls with his bare hands. He says to Chloe, via cell, that the Book of Rao isn't there. Couldn't he have used his super powers to check instead of going all Clark smash! on the place? Are his X-ray blinkers on the blink? Maybe the Kent farmhouse walls are covered in layer upon layer of lead paint. That would explain a lot, actually. He wants Chloe to check her video footage again. Chloe, back at the Watchtower, is surrounded by mostly defunct computer equipment. She tells him that Jor-El hid the Book of Rao in the north wall, but that's about all she can tell him. "Thanks to Tess's little break-in, Watchtower can barely run a game of Donkey Kong, let alone an image enhancement program." Clark gets ants in his pants about needing to find the Book before Zod does, if it's as powerful as it's rumored to be. Chloe wonders if the reason why they can't find the Kandorians is because they're off looking for it, too. Just then, Clark hears a noise coming from the pantry and hangs up with Chloe.
He storms in there and sees a young woman from behind as she reaches for some food item on a top shelf. He grabs her shoulder, shocked when it's Lois who turns to greet him. Who else would be rudely helping herself to your belongings? Noting his surprise, she teases: "If you can't recognize my butt in a pair of jeans, then what are you thinking about?" Surely if you'd been wearing a Playboy bunny costume or Scottish schoolgirl outfit, he would have known it was you. He apologizes for being so distracted. The silly music starts up as she begins to fret over their unemployment situation. "It's not a matter of life or death," he tells her. Au contraire, Clark! Her cell phone has been turned off! She can't get her clothes back from the dry cleaner! Did this woman have no savings at all? "To top it off," she says, "it's as if you're expecting me to single-handedly save our unemployed derrières!" Luckily, she's got a story for them that will get them back into the Planet. She leads him into the kitchen and shows off her research folder. He's all, "I'm too busy saving the world, so step off, woman!" Except, since he doesn't actually tell her the truth, she doesn't get why he's blowing her off. She takes his face in her hands. "I have been pounding back double-double espressos just trying to keep us on some kind of a masthead, and you've been doing... what, exactly?" Fending off alien invaders, dodging secret government agencies, trying to find a pair of underwear that doesn't bunch up at Mach 1. That sort of thing. "I just have some responsibilities I can't ignore," he says, heading for the door. She calls after him that she needs a higher purpose in life, which he doesn't seem to need. He tries to calm her down by telling her she's overreacting, which he should know by now has the exact opposite effect. When he asks her to give him a break, she suggests they take a break from their relationship. Clark is stunned, but the sound of a woman's laughter reaches him from the front hallway. He goes to the door and finds his mother walking into the house, all sunlit smiles and hugs for her baby boy. When she's surprised to find him there, he lies that he's working from home. Seeing Lois, Martha Kent invites her to dinner. Clark begs Lois with his eyes to accept, so she nods with a too-bright smile. "I've got plenty for the four of us," Martha says, by way of introducing the new man in her life. Clark goes, "Barroo?" A gentleman backs into the house, carting mounds of luggage in with him, grousing good-naturedly about Martha needing so many clothes. "With my help, you won't be wearing anything!" He says the last just as he turns around to find an audience gaping at him. Aw, it's Michael McKean! "You remember Perry White," Martha says. Lois, stepping forward, beams at him. "The Perry White?" Everyone smiles awkwardly as the comical music crescendos. Somebody save Perry from the hole he's hoping opens up in the floor beneath his feet!
Barn. Martha stares at her husband's old workbench, his gloves still lying inside an open toolbox. She looks just lovely in her understated suit with the bit of silver coming into her hair. Clark, standing behind her, says, "I think about him every day." She smiles and tells him about how she and Jonathan had their first date in the barn. They were supposed to go on a picnic but his truck broke down. Plus, he didn't want to be too far from his beloved cows. "I'm glad you made it home," Clark tells her. She plays it off at first like it's no big deal, but then she sighs and admits how hard it is for her to come back. It's a good thing the Senate in the Smallville world doesn't require its members to campaign or raise money back in their hometowns. When her voice breaks, Clark is there to hug her. She has to stand on tiptoe to put her arms around his neck. "About Perry," she says, pulling away. "I hope you don't mind. I bumped into him at a committee hearing a few months ago." She giggles almost girlishly. Clark takes a moment to get used to the idea, then assures her it's okay. "As long as he doesn't start looking for a story," Clark says. He's got enough to worry about with all the alien stuff. Mama tells her boy about how proud she is that he's trying to help his people. When he tells her he's been living two lives lately, she tells him how glad she is that he's got Lois in one of those lives. "I sleep better knowing you have someone special in your life," she says. Clark just smiles.
Back at the house, Lois is using Perry's phone to snap a picture of the two of them. "Oh, my God," she gushes. "You have got to forward this to my high school journalism teacher! Check it out, Mrs. Kreitzman, me and Perry White! Who's sorry now, beeyotch?" I think being a working writer who didn't get fired for interoffice shenanigans would probably stick it to Mrs. Kreitzman more than taking a picture with someone. Perry mentions he's read some of Lois's stories. "You and Clark are a regular Woodward and Bernstein." If Woodward and Bernstein were dead, they'd be rolling in their graves right now. Then they'd be like, "Wait, this is Smallville. Who cares what they think of us?" Lois tells him she's not working with Clark right now. She notices Perry looking through some papers in his luggage and asks if it's a story he's working on. "Yeah, I've been tracking this one for months," he says. "Big players. This thing is my white whale, kid." Lois, practically salivating, tries to get a look at his papers, but he's not sharing. She teases him with a big story of her own. Unlike Perry, she's less than secretive, showing him a blurry photo of a man flying or leaping in front of a Metropolitan building. Perry laughs. "Are you kidding me? This is a goth guy on a trampoline in a jogging suit!" Lois is offended and starts to tell him that she got a call from the Blur asking for her help, but bites down on the admission before she can say his name. She says, "When I started investigating this 'shady redhead,' I found the mother lode. There are aliens on our planet." Why would she think it was a picture of an alien and not of the Blur himself? Perry busts up laughing until Lois shows him the piece of her research - a sketch of the Book of Rao, which she knows by name somehow. Perry, unable to contain his interest, tries to get a closer look, but Lois snatches the sketch away. "You gotta give some to get some." He grudgingly starts to tell her about investigating the destruction of a secret government complex and being blocked by an operative codenamed the "Red Queen." "I think she's shadowing the secret organization called Checkmate, which is fighting some kind of terrorist invasion." He retrieves a picture from his luggage, showing a sketch much like the one Lois has. "Maybe our two stories are really the same story," Lois says. Perry invites her to write the story with him. Bylines flash in Lois's eyes.
Luthor mansion. A fully-clothed Tess is in bed, asleep, frowning as she starts to stir. She gets up and crosses the room to the window. She throws open the drapes. There are metal grates on the window. Tess runs to the window and finds it much the same. The quality of light is gritty and surreal and motions are jagged. She makes for the door, but finds herself trapped behind a vault. She lets out a cry of frustration and bangs on the metal. "What did you do to this place?" she screams up at a security camera. A man in black opens the vault, crosses the room, and backhands her into wall. He steps on her chest when she tries to get up. It's Maxwell Lord. "Where is the Book of Rao?" he asks. Commercials.
Kent house. A flowery apron has been laid out on the kitchen counter. Martha stares at it for a long time, this once-familiar relic from her past, her face etched with pain as she finally puts it on. When she hears Lois coming down the stairs behind her, she puts on a smile. "Gotta hand it to you, Mrs. K," Lois says. "Running senate committees by day, cooking rocking meals by night?" They have a chuckle over how Martha can do it all. Well, she has a lot of minions to help her these days. Oops, is that a spoiler for the rest of the episode? My bad. As they get down to peeling veggies for the evening meal, Martha asks Lois for the news on her and Clark. Lois, furiously whittling a carrot down to a nubbin, lies that she and Clark are doing fine. Martha, getting a whiff of BS, asks, "Perry mentioned you aren't writing together; is everything okay?" Lois: "...Yeah!" She takes a breath and asks, "Have you ever wanted to do something really important with your life?" Martha gives her a hilarious "duh" look. Lois remembers she's talking to a U.S. Senator. Martha, taking a cue from UB40, pours them both a glass of red, red wine. She talks about how hard it was to leave Clark, but she needed to move on. Lois beams: "That is exactly how I felt when I was talking to... this friend." She waxes nostalgic for the days when she helped this "friend" of hers and how she felt like she was saving the world. Martha smiles knowingly at her and remembers how she once wondered if she'd made a mistake, following Jonathan to Smallville. "I went from city socialite headed for law school to being a farmer's wife, marooned on an island of corn." She goes on to say she left for a while to intern for a federal judge, but came home one rainy weekend to find the river was flooding. She and Jonathan worked all night to sandbag the river. "When the sun rose, I got to tell 20 families that it was safe to go home again," she says. "I didn't know what my purpose was until that day. I just needed to look inside myself." The moral of the story is clearly that you don't have to make grand gestures to save the world; you can do it in small ways that mean just as much. But Lois, looking sad despite her smile, doesn't seem to be hearing it that way.
Watchtower. Chloe's on the phone with Clark. "The Kandorians are still MIA." Clark, on the front porch back home, is growing increasingly worried. "What about the Book of Rao? I've searched the entire farm and it's not here." Chloe, dodging a jungle of dangling wires and computer cords, makes her way to a single functioning laptop. The wee little laptop is chugging away, searching the Internet for any mention of the Book of Rao. I know you can find practically anything online these, days, from bacon-flavored salt to sex toys for your pooch, but an alien bible? Really? Before the jury-rigged computer can return any results, though, the search is blocked. A stylized graphic of a foreboding-looking Red Queen appears on the screen. The graphic starts popping up on all the screens around Watchtower, including the ones that had still been displaying only static. "Bad news, Clark," Chloe says. "It looks like I just got a Red Queen virtual smackdown." Man, she's even better than China at blocking Internet searches! Clark thinks it sounds like a Checkmate deal, but Chloe tells him that the Red Queen isn't working for them. "In fact, the rumor has it that her name has been filed under 'big bad nemesis.'" Clark, making his way to the side porch, finds Perry waving him over from a cozy wicker chair. Clark makes his apologies to Chloe: "I'll be there as soon as I can. I'm sort of held hostage here till after my mom's family dinner."
Perry invites Clark to have a drink with him. Clark eyes Perry's glass with consternation. "Club soda," Perry says. "Since that little wakeup call of yours years ago, I've been a teetotaler, and an utter bore." Clark smiles and takes note of Perry's satchel, overflowing with newspaper clippings. "Still chasing down stories, I see." Perry waves it off as a freelance project, but then adds he's working on it with Lois. "I hope I'm not overstepping," he says. Clark's butt clenches so fast you can hear a tiny thunderclap. Nonetheless, he manages a tense smile. "There was this one story she wanted my help on, but it looks like she's traded up for... a more experienced partner." Perry chortles. "I'll let you in a little secret: experience is overrated." They sit down and Perry tells Clark about his early reporting life, chasing down stories, living on the road, and losing wives because of it. He finally realized the important thing was to have someone to share your life. Clark puts on his "thoughtful" face, which is a lot like his "drifting off" face. He's brought back into focus when Perry tells him he's going to ask Martha to marry him. Clark moves his eyes around. "I'd like your blessing," Perry says. Clark thinks about it for a second, then leans forward and says, as kindly as possible, "I don't want to get in the middle of anything, but I don't think she's going to give you the answer you're looking for." Perry looks like he wants to cry.
Later, Lois and Clark are setting the dinner table. Clark is trying to talk Lois into sticking together, but Lois says she has a lot she needs to figure out. "I can't keep lying to everyone about us," she says. Martha walks in to hear the tail end of that. Clark, seeing her, says too cheerfully, "Mom! Everything smells great!" Lois plasters on a fake smile and turns to look at Martha. Martha, letting them continue blowing their collective noses into their tissue of lies, starts to ask for help with something. She forgets what she meant to say, though, because at that moment, Perry is backing into the kitchen with a armful of firewood. The way the dwindling sunlight frames him and lights his hair makes him look for a moment like Jonathan Kent. To top it off, he's wearing a familiar-looking barn coat. Martha smiles, lost in a memory, until Perry steps out of the light and into reality. "Who's up for a crackling fire?" he asks. Martha tries to keep smiling, but dissolves into tears and leaves the room. "What did I do?" Perry asks. "That was my dad's jacket," Clark says. Perry silently curses himself. Did he find it in the woodshed or something and just decide to put it on? For all he knew, it could have been full of ticks or chiggers or sad memories of a dead husband!
Night has fallen and dinner is finally ready. Everyone has gathered around the table for a deliciously meal of pork roast and awkwardness. They eat in icy silence until Perry, his mouth stuffed with food, breaks out with, "What a spread!" He pats Martha's hand. "You really outdid yourself, honey." She smiles without looking at him, choosing instead to focus on her yummy wine. Perry tries to get a conversation going by asking Lois and Clark to tell them what it's like working together while dating. "It's never been better," Clark says with the taste of mashed potatoes and lies on his lips. "It's sort of like being on a chain gang with your ball and chain," Lois offers. Clark gives her a look. Martha guffaws like that was actually funny. She must be on her fourth of fifth glass of Cabernet by now. Clark keeps lying about how awesome everything is while Lois stabs at her food. "We always work things out," Clark says. Lois: "Except when we don't." Clark gives a hilariously fake laugh. Perry brings up that engagement announcement from a while back, the memory of which has Lois coughing up a mouthful of food into her napkin. Clark dismisses it as a simple crossing of signals and says they're taking things slowly. Martha compliments them on being old-fashioned. Lady, Victorians weren't this old-fashioned. Off Lois's incredulous look, Perry asks, "How's that working out for you, Lois?" Clark prompts her with a goofy smile to keep up the ruse, but Lois has had enough. "Mrs. K, I can't keep lying to you." She tells them about being fired from the Daily Planet and taking a break from each other. She turns to Clark: "The truth is, I need to find a way to make a difference with my life." I hear the Peace Corps is always looking for people. She realizes she can't look to anyone else - even the Blur - to make that happen. She wants to do it on her own. Martha looks on the verge of tears. Lois tells Clark she's breaking up with him. He looks very slightly sad. His lips look super-red. Everyone stares in awkward silence until Lois finally excuses herself from the table. The pork roast is like, "I died for this crappy dinner?" Clark follows Lois to the door, pleading with her not to dump his sorry ass. "If you care about me, then let me go," she says. He does, so he does. Perry is in such a hurry to get away from the table to go see Lois safely home that he spills the contents of his satchel. As Martha leans over to help him, she sees all the Kandorian notes and sketches. She pales noticeably, but watches him leave without a word. Commercials.
Luthor mansion. Tess stands back as the door to her prison is opened and a man is thrown inside. He lands on the floor with a loud thud. Even with his shirt on, Tess instantly recognizes her new cellmate: "Oliver!" She rolls him onto his back. His falls open, showing his bandaged chest and a "Z" of blood seeping through the dressing. She checks under the bandage. The wound is red and gooey. Tess gasps into her hands. "We have to get out of here," Tess says. "Did this guy tell you what he wants?" Oliver rattles off something about the Red Queen, a gold disk and a bunch of aliens. As he gets to his feet, he realizes they sound like something Tess would be looking for. He thinks Tess is tricking him. "You had me hauled in here so you could get information about this Rao thing." Tess stares at him, aghast. Also, she appears to be wearing the same clothes she was last week. "It's you," Oliver says. "You're the Red Queen." Tess gives him a wide-eyed stare.
Kent farm. Clark and Martha return to the abandoned kitchen. "Talk about a recipe for disaster," Martha sighs. Clark takes the blame for ruining her weekend with Perry. She assures him Perry didn't leave because of him. She wonders if it was too soon for her to move on. Hasn't Jonathan been dead for about five years now? She thinks they were all trying too hard to pretend things were okay. Clark apologizes for lying to her. "I'm not the one you should be worried about," Martha says. Clark clears the table as he moans about his Kandorian problems getting in the way of his relationship problems. "I just couldn't stop lying to her," he pouts. Martha suggests Clark be honest with Lois. He tells her about how he tried to tell her the truth, but she thought it was more important for the Blur to protect his identity. Clark gets all misty-eyed. "Talking to her as the Blur, I've seen a different side of her." He sighs about falling deeper for her, but, "It's just a side of her she's willing to share with Clark Kent." Clark mopes at the ground for a while. For someone who was just recently so impatient to hunt down the Kandorians and find the Book of Rao, he sure is wasting a lot of time pretending he's in a Nicholas Sparks novel. Martha gently tells him he's either going to have to take the step in his relationship with Lois or let her go. He stares into space.
Talon apartment. Lois and Perry arrive to find the place in ruins. Picture frames are askew on the walls, furniture has been overturned. Also, there appears to be a Mountie-style hat on the floor. What the hell? Perry takes it all in and says, "Well, either you've been robbed or I missed one hell of a party." They both get excited when they realize this means they're a threat because of the story they're working on. Lois digs around in her closet for the special Checkmate cellphone she's got stashed in the bra portion of her Wonder Woman costume. "Hope this gets us to the Red Queen," Perry says. "She showed up around the same time Waller disappeared. Maybe she's taken over Checkmate's network." The flimsy attempt to explain why a Checkmate phone would reach an enemy of Checkmate is appreciated, but still: dumb. Lois dials and immediately starts hounding a guy who answers as "Taco Dan's." She babbles at approximately 400mph about the Book of Rao and the alien invasion and the kaploded castle. Lois demands a meeting with the Red Queen. Perry, taking the phone, adds, "Or else we'll yank Her Majesty off the chessboard and put her on the front page of the Daily Planet." Taco Dan hangs up. Lois: "Maybe that really was a Mexican restaurant." But a moment later, the phone beeps. Taco Dan gives them the coordinates to meet the Red Queen. Maybe she'll bring gorditas.
Metropolis. Clark catches up to Vala on the city streets beneath the monorail, but she doesn't want anything to do with him. "You killed my sister!" Pretty sure Zod said that Faora was killed by a human. Nonetheless, she seems a mite pissed as she tries to super-zip away. Clark zips in front of her, stopping her. "You don't really believe that, do you?" She sighs and asks him what he wants. "Tell me everything you know about the Book of Rao." The Book of Rao is long and boring. No one can lift the damn thing. It's full of charts and facts and figures, and instructions for dancing. She tells him, "It's the Kandorian bible, and it has all the knowledge and power of Rao." She very sincerely tells him it will destroy their lives here on Earth. Clark thinks about that for a second. "Does Zod have it?" Dude, don't you think he'd be doing something dastardly with it right now if he did? Vala says he's looking for it, but that danged Red Queen keeps blocking his moves. Vala thinks the Red Queen is none other than Tess Mercer. Clark looks ever so slightly confused, because he saw the promos that spoiled the reveal. When his cell phone rings, Vala zips away. Clark answers to Chloe telling him that she's picking up "high-level chatter" about Perry and Lois going to meet the Red Queen. Does the Red Queen have a Twitter account or something? They're worried that if the Red Queen is Tess, Perry and Lois are in trouble. Nah, they're comics canon; they'll be fine. Take your time finding them. In fact, take the whole commercial break!
Back from the break, Oliver is getting his ass handed to him by Maxwell Lord, and not in the fun "only on premium cable channels" sort of way. Lord punches him around a bit, then aims a gun at him while Tess watches in horror. "Where is the Book of Rao?" Lord asks Tess. "Tell me now or I'll kill him." Oliver, groaning on the floor, once again accuses Tess of being the Red Queen. Lord shoots him in the leg. Tess, rushing to Oliver's side, begs Lord not to kill him. "I am not asking again," Lord says. Tess stands before him, acting as a human shield for Oliver, the look on her face at once frightened and defiant. Cassidy Freeman is so awesome. It's too bad they write the character so unevenly. Anyway, Oliver miraculously gets to his feet and cozies up to Tess from behind. Bruised and blooded, he whispers in her ear: "You know, as much as I hate you for it, you were always the one," he says. "I love you." Tess slowly closes her eyes. When she opens them again, the fear is gone. She turns around and head-butts Oliver. She grabs Lord's gun away and turns it on him. "Nice try," she says. She fires the gun. Her bedroom dissolves in a ripple of blue electricity. Replacing it is a darkened room where Tess is lying on a metal table as Lord stands over her, hand stretched out over her head to manipulate her thoughts. She opens her eyes and stumbles off the table, much to his surprise. She hits a surgical tray on her way down and pops back up with something sharp and pointy, which she presses to Lord's throat. "You had me going until you had Oliver confess his love," she says. "You just had to go that one step too far." "We know you have the Book of Rao," Lord says. Instead of answering, Tess backs out of the room with a threat: "You try any more head games and my torture won't be virtual." When she's gone, Lord picks up a red phone and dials. "You were right," he says. "It didn't work." A high-pitched buzz comes from the phone, stunning him. He falls to the floor. Dead? Unconscious? Who knows?
Coffee shop. Lois and Perry sit at a table outside, nursing their mugs of coffee while a waitress looks impatient for these fools to leave so she can go home. Lois, on the other hand, is thrilled to be there. "Is this what it was like when you busted the Star City strangler?" she asks. Perry doesn't remember much about those days, as he was still partaking of the moonshine. A woman in red appears on a rooftop across the street. There in the world is Carmen Sandiego! Lois and Perry notice her and set out on a ridiculous path to meet her. It involves clambering up a newspaper dispenser and racing up a series of fire escapes, which proves to be relatively easy for Lois but less so for Perry. He huffs and puffs and asks Lois for one final request. "Don't talk like that!" she says, reaching the roof. "It's not pretty, but it has to be said," he says. "I think I deserve first position on the byline." Heh. She urges him up and he gives it his best, uttering a "Great Caesar's ghost!" to titillate the fanboys. As he reaches the last rung of the last ladder, the bolts give way. The ladder swings away from the roof and crashes into an adjacent sign for Atlas Emporium. Perry swings perilously from the rungs like a puffy pinata. A small crowd gathers on the streets below. It looks to only be four or five stories up; if he timed it right he could probably break his fall by landing on a bystander. Lois rushes off and brings back an extension cord, the end of which she tosses to Perry. As he grabs the cord and lets loose of the ladder, Lois is yanked off the rooftop by the sudden momentum of his weight, yelling, "I knew I should have paid attention in physics class!" in the moments before she splats onto the pavement.
Well, that's what should have happened. Here's what the show shows us: As Lois begins to hoist Perry up, the Atlas sign breaks away from the wall and falls toward the street. The bystanders duck like that's going to help anything. Lucky for them, Clark whooshes onto the scene and catches the sign just before they can be turned into people paté. He stops there for a moment, the sign in his hands, and surely half a dozen or more people just got a look at his pretty face. Then he's off to the rooftop where Lois is still pulling Perry up to safety. Clark watches from a safe distance, smiling when he's sure Perry has been rescued. The crowd below erupts in applause. Lois waves at her admirers. "I think I could get used to this," she says. What, creating your own perils and then rescuing yourself from them? Clark smiles with pride before whooshing away.
Elsewhere, the Red Queen in her crimson getup and patent stilettos is stepping into her awaiting limo. It speeds off but doesn't get far before Clark stops it with a hand to the hood. He zips over to the side of the car and rips the door clean off its hinges. He approaches the Red Queen, demanding she tell him where she has the Book of Rao. She answers with an upraised fistful of Kryptonite. Clark gets all pukey and falls back. The limo speeds away. Somehow, the door is no longer missing. Must be one of them fancy new self-repairing limos. Clark watches it go, muttering, "This isn't over, Tess." Commercials.
Watchtower. Suddenly it's daytime. Chloe's staring at what seems to be a blank laptop screen when Clark walks in. "Any sign of Tess Mercer? Her reign as the Red Queen is about to come to an end." Chloe hands him a medical file, telling him, "While you were being Kryptonited by our mystery majesty, Tess Mercer was being treated for cracked ribs at Met Gen." Clark wants to know when Chloe can get Watchtower up and running again. She hems and haws about it, but Clark is impatient. "I've seen you overhaul Watchtower in one night, Chloe, what's the holdup?" Ass. Chloe confesses that she's the one who's not ready. She talks about how she withdrew into Watchtower after Clark left. She stands before one of the windows that's still enclosed behind a metal iris. She thought what she had were answers, but realizes now having information isn't the same thing. She takes a long, shuddering breath. "I can't be the eye in the sky anymore," she tells him. It's such a big thing for her to admit to him, considering she's been his main source of information for nine years now, and telling him this means risking losing that connection to him. It would be nice if the show would focus more on these interpersonal moments. Still not looking at him, she goes on: "And now that I have Ollie, I want to plug into the real world." Her eyes tear up and her nose reddens before our eyes. Kudos for calling on real tears, Allison Mack. "Virtual reality bites," she says without a hint of joking. Clark tells her that the Watchtower she created is "bigger than the both of [them]," and will serve future generations. "I'm not the hero here," she says almost desperately. He takes her shoulders in his hands, facing her, telling her she's as much a hero as the rest of them. "We're on the brink of war and the world needs you." He pauses and adds, "I need you." Poor thing can't resist the big galoot. She steels herself and, with a touch of a button, reactivates Watchtower. The metal iris opens, bathing them in sunlight. "I just want you to know," Chloe says, "that even when I hurt you, I was trying to protect you." That makes Clark think. He looks at a picture of the Red Queen's insignia. "Protect me," he echoes as the little night-light in his brain goes on.
Luthor mansion. Tess, having stopped off for a clean change of clothes, makes the wine cellar her destination. She removes the Book of Rao from its hiding place in the false bottom of a wine bottle. Not long after she has the octagonal disk in her hot little hands, she notices a shiny red chess piece and picks it up. A gun clicks behind her. "The Red Queen, I presume." Her Majesty emerges from the shadows. Holy crap, it's Martha Kent! How very shocking! Never, ever saw that coming! Man, show, you really know how to hold the suspense. Tess starts to look over her shoulder, but Martha commands her not to turn around. "Slowly set the disk on the floor and slide it back to me." Tess does as she's told. Martha picks up the disk in her red-gloved hand. Also, I cannot get over how fabulous her shoes are. They're not just ruby-hued patent leather, but faintly metallic, as well. Utterly impractical for skulking around, but fabulous. "Sorry I sent your mind-reader packing," Tess says. "Don't be," Martha tells her. "I'm not a fan of his tactics, but he got the job done." Tess realizes that the Red Queen meant for her to escape. Martha, who has also put on a full face of makeup since that ill-fated dinner, calls Tess "predictable," which is how she knew to follow her here. Tess protests that the Queen knows anything about her. Martha proves her wrong: "You say you're saving the planet, but you really only care about yourself. You figured out Maxwell's charade because you knew Oliver's declaration of love was a lie." Tess's eyes fill with tears. "You can't comprehend what it truly means to protect someone you love," Martha says. She finishes with a threat, telling her to stay away from Clark. "If you're not careful, you'll end up on the wrong side of the coming apocalypse." A tear rolls down Tess's cheek. When she turns around an instant later, she finds herself alone in the wine cellar. Damn, Martha's fast. And quiet.
Daily Planet. Lois, with Perry at her side, marvels at how he was able to get her job back. Her nameplate has been restored to her desk. Clark's, too, is back to its familiar station opposite hers. Perry plays it off as "no big deal," just a little talk with her boss. Lois beams. "Well, I will never forget this, and neither will Clark." Perry compliments her on their teamwork and asks her to go with him to Nairobi, where he's supposedly tracked down the Red Queen's new location. Lois is tempted, but realized, after working with him, that she doesn't need to go elsewhere to find her "higher calling." "I needed to find the hero inside myself," she says. He shakes her hand and heads up the stairs. She calls him "Chief" for no real reason at this point. He stops long enough to tell her, "Oh and tell Clark we're even. I owed him one from a long time ago." Lois goes back to her desk, taking it all in, running her hands over the computer keyboard. Suddenly, there's a whoosh that ruffles her hair. When she looks down, there's a note on her desk that reads, "It's time for us to finally meet. -- The Blur." Lois frowns, because, like, didn't they just agree not to meet face-to-face? Something sneaky going on!
Kent house. Clark comes home to find his mom baking pies in their gorgeous antique oven. Sunlight streams into the kitchen through the open windows. He looks at the scene for a moment, taking it in. Then, sadly: "I can't believe you have to go back to being Senator Kent today." "It's just the two of us here," she says. "I'm your mom and nobody else." What an odd thing to say. Clark is totally on to her, even as he wishes for her to come back more often for visits. She promises to be back soon. "Maybe time, you could ease up on the Kryptonite," he says, watching her closely to gauge her reaction. She pauses, but pretends to busy herself with various pie-related matters. She feigns ignorance, unable to look at him. He tells her he knows that she threw Perry and Lois off the trail and went after the Book of Rao. "You're the Red Queen. Why didn't you come to me with this?" he asks. Dropping the ruse, she tells him, "Because I didn't want you in the line of fire." Clark is surprised she would involve Perry, but she says she had no idea he was on to her. Really? You know when Chloe's Googling you, but you don't know when your own boyfriend is gathering reams of research on you? "He makes me laugh," she says, her chin quivering. "He makes me feel like everything's going to be okay." Now she realizes she can't keep him in her life anymore. Clark ignores his mom's breaking heart and instead asks for the Book of Rao. He needs it to save Earth. "It's what you and Dad raised me for," he says. "It's my destiny." She exposits about going to Washington and learning about "forces" that were working against Clark, because they always tell junior members of the Senate about super-secret alien-fighting agencies. She wanted to protect him and invented the Red Queen to do it. She goes to her purse and gives him the disk. She breaks into tears, afraid of losing him. He tries to assure her he'll always be there for her, but she corrects him: The disk will get rid of the Kandorians, vanish them to "another plane of existence," but it'll send Clark away, too. Clark's face goes, "Ruh-roh!" End credits.
So that was the penultimate episode of the season. Mostly good acting, lovely guest stars, but nonsensical revelations, iffy characterization and way too much exposition. At this point in the game, there should be enough groundwork laid that they don't need to have to characters explaining every backstory moment and motivation. Stay tuned week to see how the season manages to wind up.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see what other superbeings have crossed Clark in our guide to the Heroes and Villains of Smallville!
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Tippi Blevins is going to buy some red heels to wear while writing the recap for the season finale. You can email her at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her on Twitter.